Born April 25th 1994, Sam Fender is a singer-songwriter from North Shields near Newcastle, England.

In March 2017, Fender self-released his debut single, “Play God”. Despite the track originally being recorded in his garden shed, it was later mixed by Arctic Monkeys alumnus Barny Barnicott, lending his gritty vocals a more polished and radio-friendly sheen.

On the 6th June 2018, just three months after his debut single was released, Sam Fender signed a record deal with Polydor Records. Fender caught the attention of his now manager Owain Davies after he played an acoustic set in the pub that he previously worked in, as anecdotally told after his BRIT Award nomination and also to GHETTOBLASTER magazine below

It was a chance encounter that started everything for me. I was working in an old fisherman’s pub in North Shields, a guy walked in with a cap on, he was drunk, he’d just come back to his home town after one of his artists had won some awards at The Brits. My bar manager recognized him and told me to get my guitar out and play, five years later, here we are.

Similarly to his manager’s previous artist, Ben Howard, Fender went on to win the Brits Critics' Choice award in December 2018. He described the moment he found out about the award while speaking on Fearne Cotton’s ‘Happy Place’ Podcast in June 2019.
“I found out in a taxi driving past my old High School, where one teacher had actually told me that it was a stupid idea to be in a band. I was punching the taxi seats like “Yeah! I’ve won this Brit!” and I was like flipping off the school.”

As of present, Fender & band have released a string of critically acclaimed singles, including ‘Play God’ which was added to the Fifa 19 soundtrack and the highly successful ‘Dead Boys’.

The debut EP from Sam Fender, titled Dead Boys, is a six track extended play. It offers some of his bands finest work and was released on the 20th November 2018.

His debut album Hypersonic Missiles was released on 13th September 2019. On March 5, 2019, Fender dropped the lead single of the same name as the first new release from the project. ‘Play God’ was re-released it in anticipation of the album in January 2019, becoming Fender’s first single to chart, at number 51 in Scotland and 89 on the UK Singles Chart.

The album went straight to Number 1 following its release, with Jordan Basset of NME giving it a solid 4/5 stars.